Outpost Gallifrey today confirmed a story coming from Business Wire involving a new partnership between BBC Worldwide and Palo Alto-based company, Azureus.

Under terms of the deal, Azureus will provide a peer-to-peer platform by which the BBC can push DVD-quality content into computers worldwide.

Shows included in this deal are: Red Dwarf, Strange, Invasion Earth, Doctor Who, Fawlty Towers, Coupling, Keeping Up Appearances, League of Gentlemen, and Ideal. The list is expected to keep growing.

The client which will carry this content out of the UK is currently codenamed "Zudeo". It's presently a standard feature of some iterations of the Linux OS, but will be available as a free download to other operating systems early next year. The content itself is likewise slated for 1Q 2007 availability.

What is not clear in the announcement is precisely which part of the Doctor Who catalogue will be made available in this way. Though it is likely that older episodes might be made available, the fact that Invasion Earth is making its US debut via this method may mean that the BBC will allow the newest episodes of Doctor Who to debut on broadband as well.

"Survival", the last regular story of the classic series, has now been scheduled for a Region 2 release on 3 April 2007.

According to the BBC's website, the extra features are as yet mostly unannounced, but it will be the first DVD to include a fan commentary. The fan was the winner of a Doctor Who Magazine competition.

The Radio Times, one of the premier TV listings guides in the UK is giving away two complete 10th Doctor Audio books on CD over its next four issues.

The first part of The Feast of the Drowned by Stephen Cole is in the Christmas edition, on sale from 12th December, with part two in the new year issue on sale 29th December.

This is followed up with The Stone Rose by Jacqueline Rayner with part one in the issue on sale 9th January 2007. Part two is in the next issue on sale 16th January.

As previously reported in the article Tom Baker Calling... earlier this year Tom Baker lent his voice for BT text messages. Now BT is joining Tom Baker with the classic rock band The Kinks for a special charity version of the groups hit song "You Really Got Me." The campaign titled, Text Aid is hoping to raise at least £100,000 for a homeless charity Shelter over the holidays.

To help promote the song, BT is bringing back Tom Baker once again as the voice of their text-to-landline messages now until January 8th. 2p of every text-to-landline message will go to the Shelter and all the proceeds of the song. The song will be available on December 18th available on iTunes, eMusic and 7Digital (no word at this time if it will be limited to the iTunes UK store or not).

"I'm delighted to have been asked back by BT as the voice of text-to-landline. It's rather like being Santa Claus, delivering all your festive greetings - I only wish I could hear what I’m saying!" Tom Baker declared.

The downloadable track song is produced by Mark Murphy, a long time Doctor Who fan who had set up his own site on Tom Baker in his BT voice role.

For more information see: Assodigitale - BT: TOM BAKER SAYS: 'YOU REALLY GOT ME'

To help the time pass a little smoother the BBC have updated their Doctor Who website with twenty four christmas presents - one added per day for delight and exitement.

Day 1 - Christmas Desktop wallpapers.

You can (of course) find the Christmas treats on the website: www.bbc.co.uk/doctorwho

According to Michael Ausiello of TV Guide, former Doctor (number 9) Christopher Eccleston will be joining the cast of popular American television series Heroes in January 2007. No word on exactly what character he will be playing though Ausiello states it will a real "super role" and that "you're going to flip." Read into that as you wish. So to answer Tina Turner's question on whether we need another hero, I would say the answer is YES. We will post more details as they become available.

Heroes is shown on Monday nights on NBC and then again on Friday nights on the Sci-Fi Channel.

The Sun Online is reporting today that the cast of Doctor Who is set to be on a special episode of The Weakest Link as a part of series of specials that the producers of famous (infamous?) game show are planning. The special edition show will include David Tennant as well as the Doctor's newest companion, Freema Agyeman (Martha Jones), along with "an assortment of goodies and baddies" that will be challenged by Anne Robinson (or could it be possibly the Anne Droid?).

The quiz show has done specials in the past that included reality TV personalities, comics, footballers, and recently a soap stars special that included cast members from The EastEnders, Coronation Street, and Emmerdale. At this time, no date has been announced on when the Doctor Who special will be transmitted. Further details will be posted as they come in.

BBC America has added a Doctor Who section to their web site to complement the 2005 series debuting on the channel starting Tuesday, the 21st of November (a mere couple days away from the 43rd anniversary of the series) at 10pm. The site offers the standard fare such as a photo gallery -- though don't expect to use any of these as desktop pictures for your computer as they are rather small and cropped, quiz, actor bios, video clips (currently only two from the episode "Rose"), a schedule page which at the time of this writing is useless as it only spans a week it seems, and an "About the Show" page which for the most part fails to make any acknowledgment of the series' long rich history.

BBC America - Doctor Who